Thursday, September 7, 2017

Alaska Gas Line (and LNG) news

Maybe seeing huge masses of swirling clouds in the Gulf of Mexico leads one to think about diversification of LNG supplies.  Maybe spats between Persian Gulf neighbors reinforce the idea that its a good idea to seek some portion of your LNG supply elsewhere.

Whatever the reason news out of AGDC indicates that someone thinks Alaska LNG still has a place in the marketplace.  To quote the news release:

“The foundation customer capacity solicitation is an important step in the overall project development for the Alaska LNG project,” said AGDC President Keith Meyer. “
The process enabled us to secure Foundation Customer status on the transportation and liquefaction system in an open and non- discriminatory process. In addition to an Alaska producer  submitting a conforming intent to subscribe for capacity on the system, each of the three major producers expressed interest in selling gas to AGDC for further sale to the global LNG markets. When the agreements are completed, we will have gas supply and foundation customer capacity that will allow us to provide an attractive bundled LNG sale to global customers.”
Given the low prices of Gulf Coast shale gas it's hard to get too excited about this news, however it does have the look and feel of a project that has a product to sell and buyers to buy it - something the Alaska Gas story has lacked until now.

Given the project permitting history of the Keystone XL project and the Dakota Access Pipeline the AGDC probably only has a 42 month window to work, that is the probable tenure of the current project friendly president in office. The clock is ticking.